How to get polygons to appear in copper layers in Gerbers

Warren -- I upgraded to v6.1 and it solved the problem.  Thanks!

Robert Cook wrote:

Hi - I created a fairly simple 2 sided board which will be used to

carry signals and power among LED strips. The power requirements are

fairly high current -- the whole board may carry up to 4 amps at 5V.

For this reason, I would like to use large copper areas to carry the

GND and 5V power signals.

 

I have set the whole top layer to ground and the most of the bottom

layer to +5V. Everything looks fine when I run ratsnest. However,

when I output the job and import into a gerber viewer, only the pads

and the traces appear. None of the copper fils (my polygons) are in

either the top or bottom layer gerbers.

 

I've attached the BRD file. The forum software won't allow me to

upload files with a BRD suffix, so I've renamed it to testboard.txt

to get it to upload.

 

I'm using the Sparkfun Gerber CAM Job

http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/Eagle-DFM/sfe-gerb274x.cam

 

Perhaps the CAM job is the problem, but I haven't found a suitable

alternative.

 

I've spent hours at this, trying to find documentation. I'm guessing

that I have some simple misconception.

 

Thanks.

Hi Robert

I see from the file you attached that you are using  version6.0

I think this exact polygon issue (bug) is now fixed in v6.1 which you could

download.

Beta 6.1.1 is also available. That has had many more fixes applied. I would

entertain using that.

HTH

Warren

--

Viewed / responded via the newsgroup at

news.cadsoft.de

Thanks for the quick reply, Jim. 

The polygons are actually in the correct layers.  I put the ground on the bottom (16) and the +5V on the top (1).

I did some reading in the product help files (and several other places) on generating CAM output.  I've even tried alternate job files, with the same results.

On 1/31/2012 6:48 PM, Robert Cook wrote:

Hi - I created a fairly simple 2 sided board which will be used to carry signals and power among LED strips.  The power requirements are fairly high current -- the whole board may carry up to 4 amps at 5V.  For this reason, I would like to use large copper areas to carry the GND and 5V power signals.

 

I have set the whole top layer to ground and the most of the bottom layer to +5V.  Everything looks fine when I run ratsnest.  However, when I output the job and import into a gerber viewer, only the pads and the traces appear.  None of the copper fils (my polygons) are in either the top or bottom layer gerbers.

 

I've attached the BRD file.  The forum software won't allow me to upload files with a BRD suffix, so I've renamed it to testboard.txt to get it to upload.

 

I'm using the Sparkfun Gerber CAM Job http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/Eagle-DFM/sfe-gerb274x.cam

 

Perhaps the CAM job is the problem, but I haven't found a suitable alternative.

 

I've spent hours at this, trying to find documentation.  I'm guessing that I have some simple misconception.

 

Thanks.

Click on "Help" then go to the section "Generating Output" and the

subsection "CAM Processor".    This provides lots of good background

that will help you understand what your *.cam file is going to do.

From your description it sounds like your polygons may not in on layers

1,16 (top,bottom) so they don't appear in the generated gerbers.   Check

the properties of your polygons to verify that they are drawn in the

correct layer(s).

Regards,

Jim